Field Notes

… data not content, has suddenly put an price tag on the data quality problem on mobile exchanges. A new report from Thinknear suggests the problem is only getting worse at least when it comes to location data. The mobile advertising company found that the quality of location data, which publishers attach to inventory passed onto programmatic…

… Factual is making a bigger push into the media business. The data company has released a new self-service tool to allow agencies, publishers and demand-side platforms to segment and build audiences using the company’s location analytics toolset. Last year, the firm entered the mobile ad fray with two new products. A geo-fencing API called…

… In the market for a billion dollar startup? You can cross Square off of your holiday shopping list. In an interview published Wednesday, Jack Dorsey, chief executive at the payments firm, told the New York Times’ Farhad Manjoo that the company has never “been in any talks about an acquisition with anybody for our nearly six years as an idea…

… Last summer, Apple and IBM announced a partnership to develop hundreds of new business applications exclusively for iOS devices. The fruits of the partnership, which were released this morning, include a handful of productivity and sales applications that could compete with a thriving category of startups selling software to brick-and-mortar…

… Wix, the Isreali-based website builder, has quietly pushed into the wider small business technology market since going public last year. The company snapped up a mobile app builder in May, added a booking system for hotels a month later, and launched Wix Hive, which allows users to store data from various applications on their site…

… larger business software market. The marketplace represents the opening of the company’s year-old software partner program that has produced integrations with the QuickBooks, SumAll and a handful of other providers. The details of who can integrate remain unclear, but a Square spokesperson confirmed that the marketplace will not be open to payment…

… to renewed payment legislation as a driver of adoption. “There’s a huge upgrade cycle that’s happening with point of sale systems because of government regulation and EMV adoption over the next year or year and half,” he said. Massive credit card breaches in stores such as Target and HomeDepot are driving regulators in the U.S. and abroad to require…

Target was hit by an extensive theft of its customers' credit-card and debit-card data over the busy Black Friday weekend, in what appears to be a brazen breach of a major retailer's information security.

… YP has announced a new partnership with Goodzer that will populate the company’s local search product with inventory and pricing information from the startup. It’s the latest in a series of moves by the yellow pages carve-out to rejuvenate its local search product and draw users away from Yelp and Google, as pressure continues to mount…